


Blue Morning

by librarybooks



Series: Words Kept [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Arc Reactor, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Minor Body Horror, Minor Injuries, Peter Parker Has Nightmares, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, as you can see i like writing about dreams, dont look me in the eye, he's fine tho dw, parallel to promise made
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-07 19:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19216033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librarybooks/pseuds/librarybooks
Summary: The beeps of the monitors in the medbay are familiar, but not comfortably so. It’s too sterile, too quiet at night. Peter misses the near-inaudible whir of Tony’s arc reactor, the soft blue glow that illuminates the room like a night light.Or: Tony's arc reactor makes Peter feel safe.





	Blue Morning

**Author's Note:**

> my friends said I should write a fic where peter's comforted by tony's arc reactor, so here it is! kinda wanted to explore a parallel fic to A Promise Made where Peter has nightmares too, because lord knows that boy's seen a lot. 
> 
> thank you ellabell for the idea and thank you [jenna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonair) and [alex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnceUponAFangirl) for reading this <3 otherwise I would go no beta we die like (wo)men

He hears the sound before the canister strikes the ground.

It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before, on the streets of New York and in film; the noise is not dissimilar to how it’s portrayed in the movies, the audible clap and flash like an old fashioned camera. It’s an explosive sound, a crack reminiscent of a firework, far less exciting but equally as colorful when it meets its mark.

He feels the rush of air that follows, tangible miniature jetstreams as it whistles closer, flying faster than his reflexes allow him to dodge.

The bullet lodges itself in his shoulder before he has time to react, and the force of it throws him backwards. As he tumbles through the air, desperately grasping for the web shooters on his good arm, Peter decides that gunshot wounds kind of hurt.

He hits the ground with a sickening thud. The shock reverberates through his body, numbing his limbs. Peter blinks, dazed, and lifts his hand to stare at it. His fingers tremble, delicate as ferns in the wind; they twitch and move, uncontrolled, as if nerves dance on the tips. The air in his lungs is brittle, and his breath comes in short, rapid bursts. He’s in shock, probably, but there’s little he can do about it on the desecrated floor of a city backstreet.

Peter releases a shaky exhale and drops his hand back to his side. His shoulder burns, rejecting the metal termite embedded in his bone, and he tries to even his breathing.

His attacker shouts, somewhere distant, and the slap of their footsteps echo at the far end of the alley. Peter tenses, preparing to sit up and fight, but he only hears the splash of a puddle and the scrape of kicked gravel. Someone else yells; their voice sounds farther away.

A minute passes, and Peter can’t hear them at all. He sighs, heavy and tired, and takes a moment to lament losing his assailant before he moves to sit up.

He hopes the woman he saved is okay. She’d run afterward, out of the alley and into the street, but Peter had stopped paying attention to her after the man before him brandished a gun.

He scrubs the back of his head and frowns. _How could I be so careless?_

It’s true that rescuing purses from would-be thieves and winning churros was getting old in terms of everyday heroics, but then Peter had never actually been shot on the job. There’s a first time for everything, he guesses, but that doesn’t lessen the agony, or dislodge the bullet from his body.

His injured arm is drenched with blood, darkening his suit and making the spandex cling. Peter shrugs his shoulders experimentally and a sharp ache lances through his skin, rendering him almost immobile. He bites back a hiss of pain as he draws himself to stand, surveying his surroundings.

He’s alone in the alley, save for a particularly brave pigeon and the little red tears that drip down his hand, dangling from his fingertips and painting the pavement crimson.

Peter presses his lips into a flat line. Swinging to the emergency room isn’t an option — not as Spider-Man or as Peter Parker, because that would raise undue questions and May doesn’t need a call from the ER doctor right now.

His eyesight dims, and Peter blinks through the haze. He needs to get to Mr. Stark’s as soon as possible.

The smart thing to do would be to call him, but Peter doesn’t like to bother Tony on normal days, no matter how many times the man claims he doesn't mind. Tony's always busy regardless of what he tells Peter, and he’s probably upstate doing whatever it is billionaire superheroes do. A phone call would just worry him, and then Peter would have to hear it from both Mr. Stark and Aunt May, and he’d rather just fix himself up in the medbay before any scolding becomes necessary.

Peter nods, confirming his decision, and raises his good arm to shoot a web. He bites his tongue as the string drags him upward, irritating his unusable shoulder.

“God, fu — ouch.”

Peter drops the thread, abandoning it to dissolve. Swinging is out, then. He moves forward to test his grip on the brick wall instead.

“I didn’t realize,” he huffs, glancing at the pigeon by his feet, “That web slinging requires so much shoulder work.” The pigeon ruffles its wings. “But I guess you don’t need web shooters, huh?”

The pigeon tilts its head at him, cooing.

Peter tilts his the opposite way, and a chunk of hair flops over his eyes. He blows it out of his face with a puff of breath, and the pigeon takes a few steps backward, flaring its wings. It departs in a flurry of tiny grey feathers.

Peter watches the bird take flight, exhaling. “Yeah, I know. I’m an idiot.”

In the end, he elects to climb the side of the building, one arm tucked into his chest with a makeshift web sling. He moves at a snail’s pace, each shift of his muscles a sharp reminder of the metal piercing his shoulder. When Peter reaches the top, he settles himself on the roof. The material of his suit is stiff over the wound, and every small movement cracks the shell of dried blood.

Peter feels woozy, but from this vantage point, he can see his destination. Stark Tower is silhouetted against the mid-afternoon sky, shining silver like a beacon. It doesn’t seem too far.

Peter musters the strength to stand. He glances at his wrist, where his web shooters lay tucked in his suit, then at the Tower, just a few swings ahead. He bites his lip. “No other way to get there.”

Peter steps backward to leap, and launches himself off the side of the building.

 

 

“Jesus Christ, kid.”

Tony throws open the doors to the medbay, panic-stricken. His eyes are wide and his hair is mussed, as if he’d spent the last hour rubbing it on a balloon.

Peter is splayed on the floor. His hair is curled around his head like a halo, and his limbs are thrust outward, like he’d fallen backwards to make a snow angel. The suit is stained, dirtied by blood and debris. A single fray in the fabric by his shoulder is the only sign of a deeper injury — one that had penetrated the suit.

Peter smiles weakly from his spot on the ground. His lips, dry and chapped, crack as they stretch. A single drop of blood beads on his lower lip until Peter licks them. “Mr. Stark,” he says by way of greeting.

“Cut the ‘Mr. Stark’ crap,” Tony kneels on the floor beside the kid, bracing his hand on Peter’s forehead. “What the hell happened? I got an alert from your AI, and before I readied my suit, you come crashing through the window — ”

“N-nothing much,” Peter’s voice comes out in a rasp. “Just — little injury, nothing big.”

“Don’t you lie to me,” Tony removes his hand from Peter’s face and lifts a threatening finger. “I don’t wanna hear any bullshit. We have to get you onto the bed.”

“Kinda comfy down here,” Peter slurs, but his eyelids droop. His cheeks are pale, stark to match the white of the medbay, and Tony’s heart leaps into his throat.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Tony lifts him with a huff, gentle around his injured arm, and carries him with little effort to the bed in the center of the room. “You have to stay awake, Pete. Listen to me.”

Peter makes a vague grunting sound, and his lashes flutter along his cheekbones.

“Wake up.” Tony says again, jostling him slightly.

He wants to oblige — disobeying Mr. Stark isn’t something Peter likes to do, although he does it often enough. He doesn’t want to annoy him, to hear the indignant “Hey” Tony uses when he knows Peter isn’t listening. Peter much prefers the friendlier “Hey, kiddo” Tony wields when he hasn’t seen him in a little over a week.

Peter loves the man, as an idol and as his mentor, as a person and as the father-figure he’s become. He wants to listen, to wake up and talk to him.

But he can’t open his eyes.

 

 

Peter’s dreams are awash with monsters. They rise from the tides and grow from the poison land, shredding his mind into ribbons.

He burns in stifling heat, and freezes in wind-whipped tundra. The pain in his material body anchors him to Earth, but only just; he’s rife with agony, with torn flesh and scarred skin. Peter aches.

He sees acres of bone, bleached white and brittle, strewn across a battlefield. He thinks of blood mixed with snow, melting and sinking into the ground like roots. He hears the strident echo of snapping fingers, and horror consumes him, an obsidian abyss that turns him inside out.

Peter feels his fingers disintegrating and reforming, an endless cycle of regeneration, and he screams.

No one can hear him.

 

 

When Peter’s eyes crack open, he’s met with blinding whiteness.

It’s such a drastic change from the tumultuous darkness of his nightmares that Peter has to close them again, drawing his blanket — stiff, coarse fabric, _a hospital sheet_ , he realizes — over his head.

He blinks in the slight shade the sheet provides, adjusting to the light, when a familiar voice interrupts him.

“Hey, kid. You up?”

Peter peeks his eyes out above the blanket, crumpling the fabric on either side of his face. He squints against the brightness again, and when he tries to speak, his throat feels raw. “Yeah.”

Mr. Stark sits by his bedside, elbows resting on the edge of the mattress. He looks tired, dark circles bruising the thin skin under his lower lashes, but at the sight of Peter, a smile quirks at his lips. He moves a hand forward to ruffle the kid’s hair. “Gave us all a good scare, Pete.”

“Um, I — I’m sorry,” Peter says, and means it. He stares mournfully at the foot of his bed, and struggles to sit up. Mr. Stark’s hand hovers by his good arm, an offer to brace if he needs it.

Peter shuffles himself upward, leaning against the headboard. He flinches as his shoulder taps the cold metal, hissing between his teeth. The arm is bandaged, wrapped tightly, and his wound feels tender under all of the gauze. “I really didn’t mean to mess things up this badly.”

“You didn’t mess anything up,” Tony levels Peter with a look — one of his calmer expressions, devoid of much besides sincerity. “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I take it no one besides you got hurt?”

Peter opens his mouth to say yes before closing it. He isn’t sure if the woman got hurt or not, or if she got away. Just because the people in question ran in two different directions doesn’t mean she wasn’t intercepted. “I don’t know,” he answers, honest. “I think so.”

Tony’s lips curve into a gentle, comforting smile. He thumps the side of the bed with his palm. “Well, what matters is that you’re alright. You did what you could, and came out of it alive.” He passes a glance over the injured shoulder, then his gaze flicks back to meet Peter’s. “Barely.”

Peter chokes on air. His hands rustle in his sheets, and he resists the urge to pull them over his head. “Was it that bad? It didn’t feel — ”

“Why are you lying,” Tony intones flatly, less questioning and more threatening, although a grin plays on his mouth. He tries to repress it in favor of a scolding frown. “If you weren’t already hurt, I’d kick your ass myself.”

“If you don’t, May will,” Peter mutters. “It was a stupid mistake.”

Tony blinks, and his expression softens. “You’ll stay here until you heal.” He braces his hand on the side of the mattress. With his other, he pats Peter’s arm. “But you know, Pete, we have to tell her.”

Peter presses his lips together and squeezes his eyes shut. “Okay, I guess.”

It’s quiet for a minute or three, and Tony shifts in his chair. Outside, the sky darkens to deep indigo, night sky illuminated city lights. Peter rests, silent, his chest moving with deep breaths that make it seem like he’s asleep. Tony watches him for a moment, absorbing the brief snatch of blissful tranquility, and sighs.

If the kid keeps getting hurt like this, his heart — arc reactor aside — won’t last very long.

Tony moves to stand, brushing nonexistent dust from his lap, and whispers to F.R.I.D.A.Y. “Lights off, FRI.”

The artificial intelligence obliges wordlessly, and the medbay dims. Tony’s arc reactor emits the only glow in the room, faded blue in the dark.

Tony passes another glance at Peter, mouth drawn tight, before he pads towards the door.

The sheets on the bed rustle, and Tony hears the machinery behind him creak. Peter sounds groggy when he speaks. “Don’t go.”

Tony pauses, turning back toward the source. He cocks an eyebrow at the boy who sits up in bed, blinking owlishly at him. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I wasn’t,” Peter acknowledges. He straightens, patting his bedside. “Can you stay?”

Tony seems surprised, pausing as he adjusts his shirt. He points to the reactor in his chest. “Doesn’t the light bother you?”

Peter frowns. The light of the arc reactor has never seemed overly bright to him. It’s soft, like the first glow of morning, a gentle mix of blue and white that promises another sunrise.

He thinks he should tell Tony that, and then he wonders if his mentor would think it’s weird. Peter’s senses are far too diluted by drugs to decide, and his words are less eloquent than he intends. “Um, no?”

Tony’s eyebrows climb higher on his forehead, maneuvering in that curious way that Peter has never been able to replicate. “Are you sure? You don’t sound sure.”

Peter responds with an incoherent mumble, shaking his head. He doesn’t say that the blackness feels stifling to him, closing in on him on all sides, like the walls of a fallen building or the vastness of space. No matter where Peter is — the beeps of the monitors in the medbay are familiar, but not comfortably so. It’s too sterile, too quiet at night. He needs the light, more than Tony understands.

Peter licks his lips and speaks, his voice low. “I don’t like the dark.”

Tony threads his fingers through his hair and sighs. “Kid, I’m just trying to avoid blinding you. I’ll sit back here, and — ”

“No,” Peter says. He pauses, rubbing the center of his forehead. “It’s not too bright. I think it’s nice, and I — ” He exhales, shaky, and closes his eyes. “I just need you here.”

Tony says nothing, for a moment. He studies the boy, kind and vulnerable with his eyes shut tight, hands fisted in the blankets for comfort. Peter Parker is many things; a young pseudo-genius, a superhero, a nerd with a blinding smile who could very well inherit Stark Industries one day — and Tony wonders how he earned the right to be part of this kid’s life.

He’s lucky, he supposes. But he already knew that.

Tony rests his hand on Peter’s arm and squeezes gently. “Okay, Pete.” He slides the chair beside the bed closer, scraping it across the floor. From this distance, Peter hears the familiar sound of Tony’s reactor, inaudible to ears less honed than his.

It reminds him of home.

Peter’s eyes flutter closed, lashes quivering like butterflies on his cheeks. He feels warm, cozy despite the coarseness of his bedsheets, and he burrows deeper into them. The soft blue hue of the arc reactor glows behind his lids, and Peter drifts.

Beside the bed, Tony settles further into his seat. He watches as Peter’s face loses the worry lines, exhaustion forcing him to relax, and he feels a rush of affection for the boy who fought crime in red and blue pajamas.

As the sweet embrace of sleep tempts Peter, he hears his mentor speak again, distant as a dream. “Rest.”

And Peter does, for once, without fear of darkness creeping in. He dozes, and he imagines the touch of flowers, petal-soft; he hears pattering rain, halcyon days spent draped in blankets with something warm to drink; he sees the blue light of morning, lightening the sky as the sun peeks over the horizon.

Far outside Peter’s conscious mind, the arc reactor whirs.

**Author's Note:**

> back at it again! love you guys, thanks for reading <3 let me know if you have any ideas about what the next work in the series should be!


End file.
